By Manuel “Bobby” Orig, Director, ApoAgua
Leadership is the relationship between those who lead and those who choose to follow. The key to building successful relationships is to create credible leaders who both trust their followers and are trusted by them.
Credibility is the foundation of leadership. This is the inescapable conclusion the authors have come to after more than thirty years of research into the dynamics of the relationship between leaders and constituents. People have to believe in their leaders before they will willingly follow them.
Leadership is not about the corporation, the community, or the country. It’s about you. If people don’t believe the messenger, they won’t believe the message. If people don’t believe in you, they won’t believe in what you say. And if it’s about you, then it’s about your beliefs, your values, and your principles.
Credibility then is about how leaders earn the trust and confidence of their constituents. It’s about what people demand of their leaders as a prerequisite to willingly contributing their hearts and minds to a common cause.
Praise for the book
“Over the past twenty-five years, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have built – no exaggeration – the most significant body of leadership work on the planet.
Credibility is a masterpiece because it accomplishes the seemingly impossible: it boils the vast, often – complicated and confusing act of leadership down to its purest essence and then teaches us how to put it into practice in all aspects of our lives.
Simply put, this book will not only inspire you to make the difference, it will help you do it.”
Steve Farber, author, Greater Than Yourself
About the authors
JIM KOUZES, left, is chairman emeritus of the Tom Peters Company, a professional services firm that inspires organizations to invent the new world of work using leadership training and consulting solutions. He is also an executive Fellow at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.
BARRY POSNER is dean of the Leavey School of Business and professor of leadership at Santa Clara University, where he has received numerous teaching and innovation awards, including his school’s and his university’s highest faculty awards.
Jim and Barry were named by the International Management Council as the 2001 recipients of the prestigious Wilbur M. McFeely Award. This honor puts them in the company of Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, and Stephen Covey.
INTRODUCTION
Credibility is about how leaders earn the trust and confidence of their constituents. It is what people demand of their leaders as a prerequisite to willingly contributing their hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. It is about the actions that leaders must take in order to intensify their constituents’ commitment to a common cause.
The authors discovered that unless personal values were clear it really did not matter how clear the organization’s values were. People do not get more committed to a company or cause because the organization nails its credo to the door. They get more committed because it matters to them.
People want leaders who are honest, forward-looking, competent, and inspiring. What this adds up to is personal credibility. Credibility is the foundation of leadership.
Leadership is personal. It is not about the corporation, the community, or the country. It is about you. If people do not believe in the messenger, they will not believe in the message. If people do not believe in you, they will not believe in what you say. And if it is about you, then it is about your beliefs, your values, your principles.
The context of leadership has changed but some fundamentals of leadership do not change.
Fundamental No. 1: CHARACTER COUNTS
Strategy is not a biological imperative. It begins in our minds, gets expressed in words, and then gets translated into action. Over time those actions become who we are, and what you do repeatedly will determine the legacy you leave.
Leadership is not about “how to’s.” It’s also about character development.
Fundamental No. 2: INDIVIDUALS ACT; ORGANIZATIONS CREATE CULTURES
Organizations don’t act; individuals do. Organizations don’t save lives; individuals do. Organizations don’t create breakthrough products; individuals do. Organizations don’t defraud; individuals do.
It is important to make this distinction, because every one of us must take responsibility for what we do.
What organizations do is create cultures. Culture is the organizational equivalent of a person’s character.
Fundamental No. 3: OUR SYSTEM IS BASED ON TRUST
As a result of corporate malfeasance, fraud, and deception uncovered in the past, we have reached a point where an executive’s word is no longer sufficient. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires CEOs and CFOs to certify under oath that their corporate reports are complete and accurate.
This just prove one thing: our capitalist system is based on trust. It is based on whether people believe in the numbers and in the people who are supplying them. If people do not trust those who handle their money, their livelihoods, and their lives, they will just refuse to participate.
Fundamental No. 4: LEADERSHIP IS A DIALOGUE, NOT A MONOLOGUE
Among the most positive outcomes of this painful economic period is the initiation of a national dialogue. People are talking about ethics, values, corporate accountability, and social responsibility in summits, editorials, conferences, legislation, protests, etc.
Leaders cannot impose values from the top. The more people are permitted to express and to explore, the sooner we will discover our common values and common vision. And one of our shared values is to live and work in a world with integrity.
The authors assert that credibility is the foundation of leadership and all relationships that work. And credibility is essentially determined by our constituents.
LEADERSHIP IS A RELATIONSHIP
Leadership is a reciprocal relationship between those who choose to lead and those who decide to follow. If there is no underlying need for the relationship, then there is no need for leaders.
To understand better the leader-constituent relationship, we must look with fresh eyes at our images of organizations, leaders, and constituents.
The dominant organizational metaphor of our time is still the hierarchy, organized by rank and authority. This message is reinforced whenever people refer to each other as bosses and subordinates.
These are not trivial distinctions. Word choices reveal our most basic assumptions and color our most important attitudes about human relationships. A subordinate by definition is considered inferior in rank and by implication in character. A boss is someone who is considered superior in rank and status. Using the term boss and subordinate daily continually reinforces a top-down, management versus labor relationship.
It is virtually impossible to conceptualize a different connection between people at work if our language forces us into top-down, boss-subordinate images.
Jim Autry, former president of Meredith Corporation puts it this way: “Becoming a manager has to do with using the metaphors; and becoming a leader has much to do with changing the metaphors.” To renew ourselves as leaders and to revitalize our organizations, we must change these metaphors.
Are there compelling reasons to change them for organizations? The authors think so. For example:
- Xerox states in its quality handbook when they reduced their number of suppliers from five thousand to five hundred, “The objective is to build long-term relationships with the best vendors … Xerox treat the vendors as part of the extended family.”
- Bob Haas, CEO of Levi Strauss when talking about relationships with retailers and suppliers, “We are at the center of a seamless web of mutual responsibility and collaboration and mutual commitments …”
“Seamless partnerships,” “web of mutual responsibility and collaboration,” “mutual commitments” – these are new phrases in the business lexicon. The evolving nature of relationships with vendors and distributors is changing how companies do business.
It is inevitable that the way people relate inside the boundaries of the organization will have to change as well.
Which image should now shape the conception of work relationships?
In place of hierarchy, the metaphor should now be the “community.” Community is the new metaphor for organizations.
In his book Love and Profit, Jim Autry explains that the workplace is becoming today’s neighborhood and discusses the role of community at work.
By invoking the metaphor of community, we imply that we in business are bound by a fellowship of endeavor in which:
- We commit to mutual goals,
- We contribute to the best of our abilities,
- Each contribution is recognized and credited,
- There is a forum for all voices to be heard.
- Our success contributes to the success of the common enterprise,
- We can disagree and hold differing viewpoints without withdrawing from the community,
- We are free to express how we feel as well as what we think,
- Our value to society is directly related to the quality of our commitment and effort, and we take care of each other.
In a productive work community, one that is constantly learning and growing, people are contributing members and professionals.
Even in our basic manufacturing industries, the knowledge required of employees is now greater. As more and more people become professionals in organizations, whose competitive advantage is knowledge and not brute force, there will be increased resistance to being treated as “inferiors.” When people do things with their heads, they rebel at being controlled and demand being in control of themselves.
Constituents are not ordered in rank; everyone has a voice. Constituents play a significant role in the success of the enterprise. They are more than just followers of someone else’s vision and values. They are participants in creating them.
KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF ADMIRED LEADERS
The results of the authors’ surveys over the last decade have been strikingly consistent. Time and time again, people sent a clear message about the key qualities leaders must demonstrate if they want others to enlist voluntarily in a common cause and to commit themselves to action freely.
What are these crucial attributes? The majority of us look for and admire leaders who are honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent.
HONEST
Honesty was selected more often than any other leadership characteristic.
If people are going to follow someone willingly, they first want to assure themselves that the person is worthy of their trust. They want to know that the leader is truthful and ethical.
No matter where the authors have conducted their studies – regardless of country, geographical region, type of organization, the most important leadership attribute since the authors began their research in 1981 has always been honesty.
FORWARD-LOOKING
Janice Lindsay, director of international communications of Norton Company, defines her ideal leader as “somebody who sets and defines the vision and encourages you to follow that vision, and then is there when you need them.”
If leaders are to be admired and respected, they must have the ability to see across the horizon of time and imagine what might be. Constituents ask that a leader have a well-defined orientation toward the future. We want to know what the organization will look like, feel like, be like when it arrives at its goal.
INSPIRING
We admire and respect leaders who are dynamic, uplifting, enthusiastic, positive, and optimistic.
We expect them to be inspiring. They must be able to communicate in ways that uplift people’s spirits, encourage us to work hard toward the objective. This quality is rated as more important than “analytic,” “organized,” and “tough.”
COMPETENT
If we are to enlist in another’s cause, we must see the person as capable and effective.
The universal expectation is that the person be able to get things done for the business unit. In this sense, having a winning track record is the surest way to be considered competent.
CREDIBILITY AS THE FOUNDATION
The qualities of being honest, inspiring, and competent compose what communications researchers refer to as source credibility.
In assessing the believability of a source of information, researchers typically use the three criteria of trustworthiness, expertise, and dynamism. Those who rate highly in these areas are considered credible source of information.
What the authors found in their initial research and reaffirmed ever since is that, above all else, people want leaders who are credible. We want to believe in our leaders. We want to believe their word can be trusted, that they have the knowledge and skills to lead, and that they are personally excited and enthusiastic about the direction in which we are headed. Credibility is the foundation of leadership.
EARNING CREDIBILITY
A credibility check is rooted in the past. It has to do with reputation.
Reputation is human collateral, the security we pledge against the performance of our obligations as leaders, friends, colleagues, and constituents. It is what supports the natural human instinct to trust. Reputation is to be cherished and cared for. A damaged one lowers people’s estimation of a leader’s worth and their motivation to follow.
Credibility, like reputation, is something that is earned over time. It does not come automatically with the job or the title. People tend to assume that someone who has risen to a certain status in life, acquired degrees, or achieved significant goals is deserving of their confidence. But complete trust is granted (or not) only after people have had the chance to know more about the person. The credibility foundation is built brick by brick. And as each new fragment is secured, the basis on which we can erect the hopes of the future is gradually built.
- But does building the foundation warrant the effort?
- Does credibility really matter?
- Don’t we hear of business, political, labor, and religious leaders who have become successful yet lack credibility?
- Besides, isn’t business about getting results, and if people without credibility still get good results, then what difference does it make?
It matters a great deal. Despite the evidence that some people can succeed, for a time, in ways that are devious and dishonest, credibility has a significantly positive outcome on individual and organizational performance.
CREDIBILITY MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Over and over again, we heard similar examples of how people were made to feel more worthy as a result of the interactions with leaders they admired and respected. Irwin Federman, former president of Monolithic Memories explained, “You don’t love someone because of who they are; you love them because of the way they make you feel.”
It may seem inappropriate to use words as love and affection in relation to business. However, Federman contends that “all things being equal, we will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we will like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel.”
In sorting out how people felt when working with leaders they admired, the authors analyzed the themes that were expressed in over four hundred case examples of admired leaders. The ten words most frequently used were:
- Valued
- Motivated
- Enthusiastic
- Challenged
- Inspired
- Capable
- Supported
- Powerful
- Respected
- Proud
Every case was about a leader who uplifted the spirit. Every story was one of enhanced self-worth. Every example was about how admired leaders strengthened the people around them and made others feel important.
The conclusion is inescapable: when people work with leaders they admire and respect, they feel better about themselves. Credible leaders raise self-esteem. Leaders who make a difference to others cause people to feel that they too can make a difference.
Further, leaders we admire do not place themselves at the center; they place others there. They do not seek attention of people; they give it to others. They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they look for ways to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents.
The authors asked respondents to think about the extent to which their immediate manager exhibited credibility-enhancing behaviors. They found that when people perceive their managers to have high credibility, they are significantly more likely to:
- Be proud to tell others that they are part of the organization
- Feel a strong team spirit
- See their own personal values as consistent with those of the organization
- Feel attached and committed to the organization
- Have a sense of ownership for the organization
But when people perceive their managers to have low credibility, they are significantly more likely to believe that other organization members:
- Produce only if they are watched carefully
- Are motivated primarily by money
- Say good things about the organization publicly but feel differently in private
- Would consider looking for another job if the organization started experiencing problems
- They are also significantly less likely to be proud of the organization, to see their own values as similar to the company’s, to feel a strong team spirit, or to have a sense of ownership.
DOING WHAT WE SAY: THE CRITICAL DIFFERENCE
The authors asked people to define credibility in behavioral terms, to specify the behavioral evidence they would use to judge whether or not a leader is credible. The most frequent responses were:
- “they do what they say they will do,”
- “they practice what they preach,”
- “they walk the talk,”
- “Their actions are consistent with their words.”
This simple definition leads to a simple prescription for strengthening credibility: DWYSYWD – do what you say you will do. It has two essential parts: the first is “say” and the second is “do.”
People listen to the words and look at the deeds. Then they measure the congruence. A judgment of “credible” is handed down when the two are consistent.
In the domain of leadership, however, DWYSYWD is necessary but insufficient. When you do what you say, it may make you credible, but it may not make you a credible leader. Your constituents have also needs and interests, values, and visions. To earn and strengthen credibility, leaders must do what we say we will do – DWWSWWD.
That we is crucial to leadership credibility. They are expected to keep their promises and follow through on their commitments. But what they say must also be what we, the constituents believe. Leaders and constituents must be on the same path.
Forgetting the we has derailed many managers. Their actions may have been consistent only with their own wishes, not with those people they lead. The credible leader learns how to discover and communicate the shared values and visions that form a common ground on which we all can stand.
Strengthening leadership has three phases – clarity, unity, and intensity. By clarifying meaning, unifying constituents, and intensifying actions, leaders demonstrate their own commitment to a consistent set of expectations. This process earns credibility and sustains it over time.
CLARITY
Commitment to credibility begins with the clarification of the leader’s and the constituents’ needs, interests, values, visions, aims, and aspirations. Clarity exists when people can state, “I have a clear idea of what others value and what they can do.”
When clarity exists, everyone knows the guiding principles and core competencies that most directly contribute to organizational and individual vitality and success.
UNITY
To build a strong and viable organization, people must be united in a common cause –
- united on where they are going,
- united on why they are headed in that direction, and
- united on which principles will guide their journey.
Credible leaders are able to build a community of shared vision and values. Unity exists when people widely share, support, and endorse the intent of the commonly understood set of aims and aspirations. They are in agreement that the shared vision and values are important to the success of the organization.
INTENSITY
Intensity exists when principles are taken seriously, when they reflect deeply felt standards and emotional bonds, and when they are the basis of critical organizational resource allocations.
When values are intensely felt, there is greater consistency between words and actions, and there is an almost moral dimension to “keeping the faith.”
PROMOTING CONSTRUCTIVE CONTROVERSY
Appreciating diversity requires an investment of time and effort. But it pays off, and organizations are the beneficiary.
Aware of the pitfalls of institutional unanimity, credible leaders resist the urge to hire only those who look or sound or think just like themselves. They build dissent and controversy into the decision-making process so that people will be willing to speak openly and offer ideas contrary to their own.
When team members actively promote varied ideas, the group becomes more resilient. Members are more likely to see their part within the whole, and their satisfaction becomes less contingent on whether they agree on the outcome. With diversity comes balance and protection against polarization.
When thoughtful dissent is encouraged, the result is much more heightened sense of collegiality: better decisions are reached.
Credible leaders have been found to encourage dissent because it force clarification of assumptions and ideas. Leadership guru Warren Bennis observes, “Whatever momentary discomfort they experience as a result of being told from time to time that they are wrong is more than offset by the fact that reflective backtalk increases a leader’s ability to make good decisions.”
Repeated exposure to diversity and controversy fosters more sophisticated, proactive responses, high-level reasoning, and cognitive development.
SERVING A PURPOSE
When the authors called Harvester Restaurant in London to ask if they could interview executive Director Keith Henessey and personnel and training director Sue Newton, they were not prepared for their response. The interviewees felt a telephone interview would not be sufficient to tell their story and instead volunteered to fly from England to California to talk with the authors face to face. Not one other person they have interviewed has ever made such an offer. And nothing better illustrates the dedication of these two leaders to their company, its people, and its mission.
Before they would let the authors ask them any question, they insisted that they listen to an orientation of the Harvester brand, its mission and values, and their way of making things happen. They pulled out a presentation called “Making a Difference” and proceeded to tell the authors dozens of stories about what individual team members had done to take ownership for Harvester’s mission.
Harvester’s training mission – known as “getting on the Harvester Bus” – is required of all full-time and part-time employees and suppliers. It is a training program on the values, commitments, and beliefs at Harvester.
Harvester is obviously doing something right. Sales from 1991 to 1992 were up 4 percent from the previous year and operating profit was up 8 percent. These accomplishments occurred in a restaurant market that declined by 10 to 12 percent. Effectively, Harvester is beating the market by 15 to 20 percent.
From their discussions with Henessey and Newton, it became clear that Harvester’s success can be attributed to a great extent to the methodical way the company has built credibility with team members and guests. They have clearly articulated a Harvester philosophy of doing business and have unified team members and suppliers around it. They have created the necessary systems and structures and learned the individual behaviors required to practice intensely what is preached.
Leaders serve a purpose and the people who have made it possible for them to lead. They put the guiding principles of the organization ahead of all else and then strive to live by them. In serving a purpose, leaders strengthen credibility by demonstrating that they are not in it for themselves; instead they have the interest of the institution, department, or team and its constituents at heart.
Being a servant may not be what many leaders had in mind when they choose to take responsibility for the vision and direction of their organization, but serving others is the most glorious and rewarding leadership task.
The ultimate test of leaders’ credibility is whether they do what they say. In the doing is where leaders prove to others that they are truly serious about quality or respect or innovation or diversity or whatever the stated value.
Nearly twenty years ago, Robert Greenleaf pointed out that “the great leader is seen a servant first, and that simple fact is the key to the leader’s greatness.” Greenleaf, who had spent thirty years as Fortune 50 senior executive, spent the last years of his career reflecting upon and organizing what he had learned about successful business and professional people.
He observed that those people who believed foremost in the concept of service, who were servant leaders, were also successful leaders. It was their belief in serving others that enabled these executives to provide leadership that made others willingly follow.
WHERE ARE WE HEADED? WHAT IS OUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE?
THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN
Uncertainty is on the rise. More and more people are asking: Where are we headed? What is our vision for the future? In the new global marketplace, old processes do not work anymore, so organizations purge the old and wasteful ones, experimenting with the bold and more intelligent systems.
How should we structure our organizations? Which values should guide organizational decision making?
There is no consensus; we face uncertainty. We don’t know what the impact of the multicultural workforce will be upon our organizations and communities. We don’t know what levers to pull to fix our domestic and global economies. We don’t know the true impact of global interdependence upon the nature of our organizations.
These conditions make it imperative that leaders increase their credibility with their constituents. They also make it extraordinarily difficult to do so. Credibility is earned, when we do what we say we will do. But if things won’t hold still long enough for us to be consistent – or even appear to be consistent – how can we be seen as trustworthy?
The authors hope they have easy answers to these questions. They don’t.
But they do know for certain that credibility is the foundation of leadership. They suggest that we act in ways that increase people’s beliefs that you are honest, forward-looking, competent, and inspiring, and people will be much more likely to follow your direction.
Organizational life is full of struggles and tensions. Leaders feel these tensions acutely because of their responsibilities to set the example and inspire others to work collaboratively toward a shared vision of the future. Leaders who are the most in touch with their constituents – and therefore likely to be the most credible – experience the pain most intensely.
The authors suggest that leaders would do well to learn to love these struggles.
Without tension, there is no energy, without energy, there is no movement, and without movement there is no progress. So leaders have to wrestle with the tensions and dilemmas as they stretch to strengthen their credibility.
THE TENSION BETWEEN FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINT
Organizational consultant Neale Clapp believes the fundamental tension for people in organizations is between freedom and constraint:
- When do we delegate, and when do we decide?
- When do we accept another’s authority, and when do we rebel against it?
- When do we empower others, and when do we use position of power?
- When do we set limits, and when do we break the rules?
- When do we listen, and when do we tell?
To say that leaders should always increase freedoms and relax all constraints is intellectually dishonest and totally unrealistic.
To say that constituents should always accept the constraints and never challenge the status quo is totally dishonest and unrealistic.
We can count on people to strive to be free.
We can also count on organizations to exert constraints.
Part of a leader’s job is to engage in grappling with the tension between freedom and constraint.
STRENGTHENING CREDIBILITY
What does the tension between freedom and constraint have to do with strengthening credibility.
The authors maintain that leaders demonstrate their commitment to a consistent set of expectations by clarifying meaning, unifying constituents, and intensifying actions. This process, repeatedly followed, earns and sustains credibility over time.
As you begin to engage actively in the process of clarifying, unifying, and intensifying shared meanings and actions, be aware that you are tugging at an uneasy tension between liberty and limits. The credibility process implies more choice than most, yet it does result in restrictions. It still draws a line in the sand.
In tandem with the credibility-strengthening process, you are trying to determine what autonomies and what controls are collectively needed in order to create your ideal organization.
Be clear about the fact that people will have choices, but be equally clear that these have limits. They are constrained by the owners, the shareholders, the customers, the economic system, the idiosyncrasies of the founders, and the executives in power.
It is the responsibility of the leaders to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to express his or her opinion and to get a fair hearing. Leaders must provide the forum for discussion, debate, and reconciliation.
Values discussions should be intense. It is hard to imagine talking in hushed tones about something as important as the principles by which we are expected to live for most of our waking hours. If there is no energy and passion in the discussion, then you should be skeptical about what is being said.
But leaders should not pretend that listening is the same as agreeing. They should not make it seem that a constituent group will get everything it wants or that people will be allowed to “do their own thing.”
What should people do if they find that the shared values are inconsistent with their personal ones?
- The first responsible action is to ask for clarification. Ask, What does this really mean?
- If there is still conflict, then manage the disagreement. Ask, What can we do that the organization can keep its integrity and I can keep mine? Usually either the process of clarifying or the process of negotiating will reconcile the dilemma.
- If you have clarified and negotiated and conflict still exist, there are at least two other choices: withdrawal or rebellion. But if you choose the latter, do so with the understanding that the organization will deal with the rebellion as a challenge to the community and to the shared values and norms that make it whole.
TAKING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
The decision to sign on, get out, or rebel is an issue of personal responsibility. But what does it really mean to be responsible?
The authors maintain that dictionaries, management texts, and psychology books are of little help. To appreciate fully the significance of responsibility, they suggest that we must turn to philosophy.
From Aeschylus and Saphocles, to the Old and New Testaments, to Hegel and Kant, the personal responsibility discourse has been about whether people freely choose their actions or whether they are divinely predestined to act in certain ways. Hence, the term free will.
Freely choosing to do something is an indispensable condition for empowerment. Free choice is also an indispensable condition for the punishment of civil misdeeds.
Personal responsibility can exist only if people have free will and if they exercise it.
Personal responsibility cannot exist independent of choice.
In personally choosing to act, individuals are saying explicitly or implicitly, “I will accept the consequences of my actions.”
The credibility-strengthening process hinges upon the belief that we human beings are personally accountable for our own actions. People are held accountable against the standard of shared values upon which we have agreed. Ignoring this precept, as many leaders have in not accepting the consequences of their own actions, contributes to people’s increased cynicism.
Let us therefore all acknowledge that in setting out on a course to strengthen credibility, we are embarking on an ancient philosophical quest. We are seeking to understand the powers and limitations of our humanity.
The tension between freedom and constraint will be felt in every choice we make. But the overriding decision for each of us is whether we are willing to take personal responsibility and be held accountable for the path we choose.
CONCLUSION
There is no easy path for leaders to take.
If individuals cannot learn to subordinate themselves to a shared purpose, then no one will follow, and selfishness and anarchy will rule.
Yet in order to grow and improve, organizations must create a climate that fosters leadership; they must encourage the honest articulation of a fresh strategic vision of the future.
Renewing credibility is a continuous human struggle and the ultimate leadership struggle.
Strenuous effort is required to build and strengthen the foundation of working relationships. Constituents do not owe leaders allegiance. Leaders earn it. The gift of their trust and confidence is well worth the struggle.
